David Norris (Independent)

I salute Senator Cox for her brave and honourable contribution here because she did a decent thing when she said she would argue and lobby for certain changes, especially in regard to the most vulnerable and particularly widows. This is necessary. We are disgracing ourselves. I do not ask the House to listen to me or Members of the Opposition but to the Supreme Court because this case was visited in the Supreme Court some years ago. The name of the woman was Susan McHugh. The judges of the Supreme Court found that where this was attempted it was unconstitutional, disgraceful, mean-minded, immoral and unjustifiable. That is the highest court in the land. It is not a partisan attack. I regret that a decent woman, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Coughlan, has been put in this position but she did not get into it by herself. I have been around this place for a long time. She got into it because of pressure from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Department of Finance. It is outrageous to introduce discrimination against some of the most disadvantaged widows and gay people. It is discrimination.

I was proud on a day some years ago in this House when a Fianna Fáil Minister, Mrs. Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, enunciated a principle that should continue to exist in this House, that she would not introduce discriminatory measures unless there were clear, coherent and consistent reasons for doing so — none had been advanced by the Opposition at that stage. That was a decent line to take.

The amounts saved in this pettifogging, disgusting exercise are marginal. How can it be justified that approximately €6 million is robbed from widows — the widows' mite — and a tiny, insignificant amount is taken from gay people? While the Minister said this is done for consistency, I do not believe it.

Does the Government have a commitment to equality? Why has it appointed to the Equality Authority a gentleman who gave vent to his not very positive feelings about the rights of gay couples on "The Late Late Show"? What is the Government at?

I wish to comment on the Minister's speech. I was absent for part of her contribution but left a very important meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs to come to the House because I feel so strongly about this issue. The Minister's explanation was as follows:

In general, when entitlement to social welfare benefits, whether statutory or non-statutory, is determined, members of same sex couples are treated as individuals. In other words, entitlement is assessed without any reference to the claimant's partner, which, in the main, is more advantageous to the person concerned.

Fine, but who says it is more advantageous? What about human dignity? Is it all just about money? Is it not about entitlements to equality? I do not believe the Minister is saying that she wants to give some kind of financial advantage to those in gay relationships or that she prefers that situation to marriage and thinks it should be rewarded by the tax structure. That is rubbish and she knows it, as does the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley.

Was there consultation with gay groups? I have not heard of any. However, I have been briefed by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and its equality groups, and received a letter from the Equality Authority which included the statement:

Niall Crowley, chief executive officer of the Equality Authority, expressed concern at the decision of the Department of Social and Family Affairs to amend the Social Welfare Bill. This marks a significant reversal in the work to create a more equal society for gay and lesbian people. The early settlement of the case by the Department of Social and Family Affairs had reflected a valuable recognition for same sex couples. This has now been reversed. The claimant now stands to lose his bus pass.

How mean can one get? The entitlements affected by the cuts represent a catalogue of shame and include the free travel scheme. Does the Government think travel narrows the mind or that people should not be able to get to Dun Laoghaire? They also include the national fuel scheme — should people be kept cold so that they will be more moral? — the part-time job incentive scheme, the back to work allowance, the smokeless fuel allowance and the household benefits package. It is outrageous. One would need to be Jonathan Swift to do justice to this kind of thing.

The Minister referred to a court judgment, as she did in regard to widows. The equality tribunal was set up and the Minister stated in that regard:

...a case was taken against my Department by the Equality Authority on behalf of a same sex couple, where the claimant was granted a free travel pass in his own right, but had been refused a married-type pass which would include his partner. The basis for the refusal was the definition of a couple contained in the social welfare code, which does not extend to same sex couples. Legal advice indicated that this refusal amounted to a breach of the Equal Status Act by discriminating against the claimant on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Following the passage of this mean amendment, there will still be discrimination but it will be legalised by this House. I am, therefore, ashamed to be in this House today and to be told that the few cent being thrown at gay people will buy them off, which is rubbish. Half the countries of Europe have faced this issue but have not behaved in this way. Israel, which has a stronger religious ethos and from where this discrimination came, has settled a case on this basis and accepts these grounds.

The Minister continued:

It was considered that my Department was according differing treatment between opposite sex and same sex couples in the free travel scheme. In this instance, a married-type travel pass was issued. The net effect, however, is substantially differing treatment of couples, depending on whether the benefit at issue is non-statutory or is provided for in legislation. This position is not sustainable.

The Minister should do something about it. I have almost finished the preparation of a domestic partnership Bill and look to the Government and this House to support it and, if the Government will not support it, to introduce one of its own. The Bill is important and will address issues to which I have referred.

The Minister said the measures are temporary and will be reviewed. While I accept the Minister is a decent woman, she is under pressure from the Department of Finance and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, from where the mean-mindedness comes. It is dreadful and psychologically traumatic to introduce temporary discrimination.

I wish to record some of the comments made about the Bill. The Equality Coalition states:

The amendment to the Social Welfare Bill is discriminatory against gays and lesbians and will affect in particular older couples. The amendment would mean that the Irish government is the only EU country to have introduced deliberately discriminatory legislation.

The Government can wriggle as much as it likes but the legislation is discriminatory. It is said that the discrimination is in the interests of those targeted but I do not believe it. This is the first European government in a decade to again begin discriminating and this is to overrule a court judgment. While I will not rehearse the case itself, we are travelling in a totally different direction from the rest of Europe.

A consideration of the case under the European Convention on Human Rights states:

Article 8 of the Convention provides that everyone has a right to respect for private and family life. In a seminal case, Karner v. Austria, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that discrimination suffered by same-sex couples was illegal. Siegmund Karner lived in an apartment in Vienna with his male partner who had started renting the apartment a year earlier. His partner died and left the lease on the apartment to Karner. The landlord tried to terminate his residency and ignore Austria's domestic legislation protecting families renting property, which allows persons living as life partners to leave rental leases to each other. When the case went to the Vienna Regional Court, it decided the legislation in question extended to homosexuals.

The Austrian Supreme Court ruled in favour of the landlord in 1996 and decided not to extend the legislation. However, last year, the case was decided in Strasbourg and the European Court of Human Rights discovered there had been a breach of Article 8. In its judgment, the court stated:

For the purposes of Article 14, a difference in treatment is discriminatory if it has no objective and reasonable justification, that is, if it does not pursue a legitimate aim or if there is not a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realised. Furthermore, very weighty reasons [This is the same argument as that made by Mrs. Máire Geoghegan-Quinn] have to be put forward before the court could regard a difference in treatment based exclusively on the ground of sex as compatible with the Convention. Just like differences based on sex, differences based on sexual orientation require particularly serious reasons by way of justification.

The British Government just last year, in the Queen's speech, opened up the whole question of same sex relationships, so we are wildly out of sync.

I am asking, as Senator Cox did in the context of widows' entitlements, for this to be re-examined in consultation with the Government's Equality Authority, the decision of which it over-ruled and which it is now trying to over-rule legislatively. I would also like the view of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties to be taken into account.

I am astonished that this should happen. I remember arguing a similar case in this House following one of the budgets of the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy. I instanced a case of two men who had lived together in Cork for 40 years. One was 80 years of age and the other was 70. The 80 year old got Parkinson's disease and, being a caring spouse, partner or whatever one calls him, he put the house in the name of the younger man, who then got cancer and died. The older man was left with a bill of £350,000 for continuing to live in the house in which he was born. On that occasion the Minister understood the human dimension of the discrimination and I am glad to say, with the support of the House, ameliorated that situation.

I find this a very insulting element of a Bill which otherwise does some good things, like increasing social welfare payments. While I do not know whether decent people on the Government side can vote against the measure, they could lobby to reverse the measure and to support the Minister of State's Department against the mean-minded begrudgery of the Departments of Finance and Justice, Equality and Law Reform. They have shamed themselves and the country and they have made me ashamed to be in the Chamber today.